The Pain of Abuse
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Spoilers for 'Seven Times' Nikki's thoughts with Cat and an inner question; what would she have become had she killed her own dad?


I don't own Silent Witness.

Please let me know what you think as this is my first Silent Witness one-shot.

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The Pain of Abuse.

Whenever a case involving domestic abuse reached the Thomas Lyell Centre, it always made Nikki think about the days where she had witnessed the days where her father beat her mother. If there was one thing Nikki had learnt during those vividly dark days of her childhood it was how to pick up on the abuse quickly.

That's what had happened with Jenny Shaw and so many others. The moment Nikki had examined the body and seen the injuries, it had brought back horrible memories of her childhood and the moment she met Robbie Shaw she had known who was responsible at least at first, it wasn't until news of how the woman's father was an abuser as well that things grew worse.

Nikki had conducted the Post Mortem's on dozens of abuse cases, many of which had been abused for years and she always dreaded encountering a body where the abuse had taken place in childhood and went through into adulthood, and it often made her wonder, while she was on the bench by the Grand Union Canal sitting next to Cat just what it was about the human race which allowed this to go on.

It was enough to make her physically sick, especially since she'd often laid awake at night, listening to the sounds of her mother sobbing, hugging her mum for comfort. Sometimes Nikki wished she had picked that spade up and slammed it into her father's skull. She knew she wouldn't hesitate now and not even her mother begging her not to do it would have stopped her.

She could have done it so easily and effortlessly, relying on her knowledge of human anatomy and her knowledge of forensic pathology to make it a clean kill while at the same time disposing of the corpse without any ties being connected to her. As a child, she hadn't done it, and it had simply caused more pain for her mum as a result.

Now Robbie was dead, killed by Tina who had framed two people for the sake of two different women who'd suffered at the hands of their partners. Nikki felt sorry for Cheryl and for Lucy for what Owen and Jade had done to them both.

Nikki sometimes wondered to herself what would have happened to her if she had gone through with it, what if she had killed her father. There was no doubt in her mind she would have been punished in some manner and it would have completely changed the course of her life. She would almost certainly never have become a doctor in her field and respected even with the mess last year when the centre had been betrayed in the worst manner possible had cost her some of that respect although she knew it would return soon enough.

When she had met the girl after she'd rung her up at work - Nikki hadn't expected the girl to call her if she were honest with herself, she had merely left that card on the off chance, but she was grateful for the opportunity to speak to the girl whom she felt a connection to given their similar pasts - she had been worried by the girl's solemn demeanour, and Nikki couldn't blame her; with everything she had to live with since there was a good chance her grandfather would be let out since it was clear he didn't murder her father. Nikki was not surprised in the least when Cat had hinted she often came to this part of the city to escape from the abuse she had often seen her father cause for Jenny since she would need a place to get her mind together rather than stay at home and look at the unholy mess done to Jenny. Nikki had done it herself when she was a kid, why wouldn't others?

Nikki's heart broke when Cat, in a shaky far-away voice, revealed she had heard her grandmother being slapped around by her grandfather, but she wasn't surprised, particularly when Cat mentioned how she'd seen bruises on her grandmother's face. Nikki had placed her hand on top of Cat's and asked her simply "What can I do to help?"

If she had been heartbroken by what Cat had told her, it shattered into a trillion pieces when the girl had looked at her seriously and said, "Say it's not going to happen to me."

Nikki couldn't say anything to her that would reassure her, at least not right away, not until she'd had time to think while she turned her head solemnly to look at the green water of the canal so she could gather her thoughts; Jenny had spent years - God knew how many - being abused, first by her father and then by her husband. Nikki wasn't a psychiatrist, but she knew kids who were abused tended to abuse their own children, and some times it was flipped over on its head and they gravitated towards abusive partners, which was what had happened with Jenny.

"I don't know what to say, Cat," Nikki said at last. "But let me tell you with my relationships….," she looked down for a second so she could find the right words for this, "I always choose my partners with great care. I haven't married anyone yet 'cause it's not just a case of waiting for the right guy but because I want to make certain they're not going to abuse me as well."

Cat looked away for a second. "But, my mum…she was hurt by gramps. Why did she go with my dad?"

"I don't know," Nikki replied honestly although she wondered if Jenny had been abused by Robbie from the start and she had seen it as normal, which made sense in her mind but there was a possibility Robbie had become abusive later on but there was no way to tell since both were now dead.

"I can't tell you it won't happen to you, Cat, but I can give you advice. When you are older, always watch your back. There are many women out there who've been abused since childhood and they've gone out to find abusers as husbands so the cycle begins again because they think it's normal. Have you ever been hit?"

Cat shook her head. "No," she replied quietly, her expression solemn as though she didn't really know how to feel about it.

"Do yourself a favour; get a good job, lots of responsibility and become confident in yourself otherwise if you do find yourself in an abusive relationship you'll be strong enough to fight back."

"How do I do that?"

"Your mother had friends in a Women's Refuge. All of them have suffered in the same way to your mother and grandmother," Nikki said while she wondered to herself what was going to happen with the Refuge now Jenny and now Tina had been removed from the equation, although in different ways. "If you find yourself abused then you can go to one, get support…but I promised myself if I ever found myself in that kind of mess then I would take pictures of the bruises, the injuries but I would also buy a spy camera and spend time recording the whole lot. After that, I would take it all to the police, and even they wouldn't be able to turn away from that."

Nikki didn't say she'd also reveal to the media what a partner had done either.

Cat's forehead puckered into a frown. "That's a bit elaborate, isn't it?"

Nikki glared fiercely at her. "I have no intention of letting one of those bastards beat me up and reduce me to a shadow of my former self!" she hissed before she looked away and calmed down to the best of her ability. "I'm sorry," she whispered after a moment, "I shouldn't have said it like that-."

She hadn't meant to lose her temper. It was just…ever since this case had started, Nikki had been forced to remember the childhood she had tried so hard to bury but never forget since she didn't want to forget. She didn't want to lose sight of the things which made her who she was. But what infuriated her the most, looking at Cat, was remembering the state of Jenny and reading out to Jack and Clarissa in the office the endless list of injuries and the traditional excuses to go with it. Nikki had sworn never to be like that although she knew not every woman had that kind of mindset, and she doubted she would herself had her father begun beating her.

That was what had made her angry back in the office although her friends didn't really know it although they had probably picked up on enough over the course of the investigation to figure it out given her attitude to Robbie Shaw.

"No, it's okay," Cat said with a smile, her previous fear leaving her but she bit her lip thoughtfully. "While its a bit elaborate, I didn't mean that I don't think its bad advice, it's a good idea. Yeah, I'll definitely remember that!" The smile on her face made Nikki's day.

Nikki smiled back.

XXX

As she walked back to her car slowly after saying farewell to Cat who'd gone away with some advice about what to do in an abusive situation - she truly hoped the girl didn't become a wreck in later life, afraid of her own shadow, frightened of the next beating - Nikki had a moment to think about the recent case.

Tina's attack on Judge Lancing had been so sudden, but Nikki had taken a look at her situation and she knew the courts would have sent the woman's two children to their 'abusive' father. The courts claimed there was no evidence whatsoever that the man was abusive, that it was all in the woman's head. Nikki was not one of them. She believed there was a problem and she would love very much to speak to the two girls and she planned to head to the Women's Refuge and give them both the same advice that she'd given to Cat.

Nikki knew she was crossing a line, but she didn't care. Her sympathies were to the girls who were apparently petrified stiff with terror at the notion of being with their father, and she had no desire for them to go through any kind of pain and grief. While she had gone to the Gentleman's Club where Lancing had been stabbed by Tina, Nikki was unsympathetic towards the judge; the man was either nonchalant or he simply didn't care about women.

There was also no doubt Jade would get off as well, although her abuse of Lucy so soon after her release from prison would not look good for her it wasn't Nikki's problem although a part of her wished Jade had been stabbed as well.

Who would have thought she and Tina had something in common? Nikki was no murderer, but she had very nearly killed her own father for the abuse he'd heaped on her mother's shoulders, but the urge had been there. Only in Tina's case, she had followed through with it, and she had killed Robbie, Owen, and very nearly Judge Lancing.

_What kind of person would I have been if I had ignored my mother all those years ago and actually killed my father? Would I have become some kind of vigilante who went around killing people because they abused their partners?_

Nikki took a deep breath while she unlocked her car and got in.

She hoped never to discover the answer to her question.


End file.
